Cufflinks are one of the few products where the box is a bigger part of the purchase than the product's own footprint suggests. The answer to what size you need depends almost entirely on what the box is for. Three situations, three different answers.
Retail shelf or counter display
Go small and square. The pair sits on a slit pad or a printed card, the cavity is barely larger than the loaded pad, and the value comes from print and finish rather than volume. A useful scale check: a US business card is 3.5 x 2 in, which is in the same territory as many small jewelry cartons. That is an industry-typical anchor, not a stock size, so measure your own pad. Keep the depth to the pad plus the fitting plus a whisker, because a shallow box reads as precise and a deep one reads as empty.
Gift or presentation
Here you are deliberately buying volume. A rigid two piece box with a wrapped lid, a flocked tray and a ribbon pull is much larger than the cufflinks require, and that is the point. Two things to get right: the lid tolerance, because a wrapped chipboard lid has to clear the base without binding, and the tray, because the pair must sit dead square or the whole effect collapses. State on the quote whether the dimension you supplied is the internal cavity or the finished external box.
Shipped direct to a customer
Add a step. A small light box in a parcel network gets thrown, and a rigid lid can separate. Either size the retail box tight and put it inside a mailer, in which case the retail box's external size is the mailer's internal requirement, or use a closure that holds under handling. Do not solve it by making the retail box bigger.
The depth table
| Cufflink fitting | What it does to depth |
|---|---|
| Whale back or swivel bar, closed | Shallowest, measure with the bar in the packed position |
| Whale back or swivel bar, open | Noticeably deeper, decide the packing state and hold to it |
| Fixed post or chain link | Depth is set by the post or the slack in the chain, measure the pair as laid |
What to send with your quote request
Send four things and you will get an accurate dieline first time: the face width, the total depth with the fitting in its packed position, whether you want a pad, a card or a tray, and whether the box is retail, gift or shipped. Add your rough annual volume so the lane and the board can be priced properly.
Cost and lead time
Minimum order is 100 boxes. Price starts from about $0.48 per unit at bulk volumes and is confirmed on your written quote, because foil, embossing, soft touch lamination and a magnetic closure move the number much more than the board does at this size. The cutting die, the plates, design support, US shipping and a digital proof before anything prints are included. Production runs from West Chicago in the US and Guangzhou in China, in three lanes: rush (expedited production plus air freight, a premium of about 7 to 25% depending on the job), standard (air) and cost saver (sea), from about 7 business days, plus 2 to 5 for delivery, with specialty imported rigid items running up to about 12 weeks.
To order, see custom cufflink boxes. For the full measuring walkthrough, read how to size a cufflink box. Send your measurements and which of the three situations applies through the quote form, and ask for a folding carton and a rigid version quoted together.
